We adopted our puppy back in October at 12 weeks. He is now 7 months old and this is the basic account of how things have been going for other people to use however they please, lol. (Additional context, I work from home)
Potty Training: I would say he was successfully potty trained by end of December (~2 months of training). The first night we got him, we took him out every hour in our backyard to go to the bathroom. He did such a good job with minimal accidents inside. That was the basic idea in general, was to take him out every hour with increased space in between potty breaks as he got older. There was lots of praise when he went with tying the word “pee” and “poop” when he went so we could encourage him when walks started.
When he did have an accident, we never punished. We might accidentally yell “No” but it was hard to stop when you see that squat happen lol he would be taken out immediately to finish pottying. His last accident indoors was back in December and that was because he was sick. I’m sure we might have a couple more before he hits a year, but he can hold through the night and up to 4 hours during the day! He also signals to go out and we say “want to go outside?” before opening the door so he associates the phrase with it.
Socialization: We started with treats and a sling bag. We took him on walks before he was fully vaccinated and worked on acclimating him to different sights, sounds, and people and encouraging him with praise and treats when reacting the way we wanted. After full vaccination, he goes to a puppy daycare 1-2x per week (more on that later), we also introduced him to friends dogs who we trust. He is a happy rambunctious pup!
Training: We signed him up for a two week puppy training course at a local place, same place as the daycare. This was the best thing we invested money in. It was two weeks of intense training for him that covered sit, stay, climb, down, heel, and crate training. Just the basics. It gave us the foundation to work on everything else. He now knows sit, drop it, shake, spin, touch, down and wait, and we’re working on others. It’s been a struggle to find a treat he likes the most, but he is very very toy motivated! He has to work for us to throw the toy by going through his tricks.
Because he is so toy motivated, we worked a lot on drop it. He gets snappy sometimes with my partner (because I’m the main trainer), but for the most part we continue to make progress every month.
Crate Training/Enforced Naps: The training camp was the best thing that ever happened to us. Crate training was a game changer for him and us. From month 3-6, we did 1 hour up, 2-hours asleep. After the 6 month mark, I began to keep him out all day while I work (with the occasional nap during the day). I encourage calmness while I’m in meetings by feeding treats when he lays at my feet. He only goes into his crate at night and even takes himself (which I never thought would happen to us).
I’m working currently on leaving him out while we leave the house. Longest trip away has been 10 minutes lol otherwise he goes in his crate to wait for us to get home.
Challenges: He got sick with a respiratory infection right before Christmas which was terrifying and resulted in an ER visit, that was tough and set back a lot of our training and was tough to work from home while he needed help.
He then got sick with Giardia a month later, lol, it made me wish for the respiratory infection. So far we seem to have beat that. That resulted in a week-long deep cleaning regimen and the addition of probiotics and food topper (Bernie’s Perfect Poops). Fun note for that, to trick him into taking liquid medications I would give him water that the chicken was boiled in in the syringe throughout the day, so by the time he needed the meds, I would just switch it out and he took it easily!
(Also really recommend pet insurance because those ER visits are expense 😅)
Overall: The first three months were the most challenging. I really recommend working with a trainer or training class of some kind and having the budget already set-aside to do that before adopting a puppy, you just never know what might pop up or what you’ll struggle with because each puppy is different. We feel very lucky that he’s developed a calmer personality and does well with dogs and cats. It’s constant work, but we love our boy! (Now if he could just stop getting sick lol)
Happy to go into more detail on any section for anyone who needs it!
submitted by /u/jaimange
[link] [comments]